


How To Prevent Armageddon 101, with Aziraphale and Crowley

by amekokain



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adam has a demon mum too, Aziraphale you too, Crowley just tell him how you goddamn feel and get on with it, F/M, M/M, Slow Burn (ish)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-24 04:47:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19166122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amekokain/pseuds/amekokain
Summary: Okay, so maybe letting Crowley hand over the literal Antichrist to a less-than-organised Satanic nunnery wasn't a good idea. But it all worked out in the end, right?A story about an angel and a demon, and their attempt to save the world they've fallen in love with, and maybe each other along the way.





	1. So, You’ve Chosen Me To Be The Deliverer?

_'Meet Jezebel; Queen of Harlots, Babylon and Hell, and the mother of the Antichrist.'_

A hand clenched a filthy sink edge, denting it under the strain it was putting upon it. Another hand joined it, just as well manicured as its' counterpart and damaging the fragile metal just as much. Rats crawled everywhere and flies flew everywhere the rats weren't, drawn to the stench of the demons around her. She was a mess of black hair, usually so neat and pristine and well kept, but considering the poor woman was about to push another soul from her body, neatness wasn't on her mind. The only thing that was on her mind was the fact that her husband had so blatantly lied to her about how much pain she was going to be in during this process. She'd had a child before, naturally during her human years, but this was causing her far more discomfort than her human child had ever caused her, and he had overthrown her and left her to rot on the streets. No, this was different. Perhaps it was the purely demonic nature of this child, the fact that he was to be the Destroyer of Earth, that made her labour as painful as it could possibly be. A grunt of pain left her non-discorporated self as another contraction gripped her indefinitely. It wasn't exactly that the Antichrist was a planned pregnancy, it was a complete shock at the time, everyone just expected it to come a lot later. And by a lot later, we mean eons later. Hundreds of years later, in fact. But seeing as no one not of Agnes Nutter's heritage had read her Nice and Accurate Prophecies, they had naturally assumed that the birth of the Antichrist and the start of Armageddon would happen much later, once humanity had destroyed the planet themselves and given the forces of both Heaven and Hell a rather less populated battlefield with which to contend upon. And yet, Jezebel was just minutes from expelling the Antichrist, her second son and Lucifer's first, from her body. For the few demons that had caught wind of the evening's happenings, Armageddon couldn't come soon enough.  
"Beelzebub, for the love of all that's unholy, stop staring and get Hastur!"

_'Once this baby is born, it shall be delivered to the surface-dwelling mortals of Saint Beryl's and given to the American Attaché's wife.'_

Had Lucifer been present during any step of Jezebel's labour, she assumed it would have been easier. Perhaps the pain wouldn't have dulled, but it probably would have been easier psychologically. As aforementioned, this wasn't Jezebel's first child, but she certainly loved him more than her first (actually caring for the child's father was a big factor in this, her mortal husband was a disgusting human being that she had personally cast into the furthest Pit once she had joined her True Love on the Throne). So once this child had been born, it was rather difficult for her to place him in a basket and hand him to Hastur. A final glance at his sleeping face was all it took to convince her that once the end of the world had begun, all would be right again and perhaps she could be the mother she hoped to be. But she couldn't be the one to raise the child. He had to grow up sheltered and spoilt, never wanting for anything and rotten to the core, living a life of luxury with human parents that would eventually not care for him in the slightest and choose their work over him at every opportunity. She would order a demon to watch over him as he grew up, ensuring that everything would be on track (it would be neither Hastur nor Ligur; both were as incompetent as they were hideous. A mere one human a day tempted into sin? One human out of seven billion? Yes, incompetent was the word for them). Perhaps she would ask Crowley, he seemed capable enough, even if he was lazy, but he seemed to want to stay alive enough that he would do it, and besides he had lived on Earth for over six thousand years and was therefore bound to understand some human complexities, and was just evil enough to ensure that the child would be raised in the right way. Also, Crowley has been Jezebel's closest friend since she'd joined the Damned, and from a personal level she doubted that he'd want to displease her. After all, Armageddon had to happen. In a strange way, she was almost pleased to hand her child over to a complete stranger. It gave her a certain sort of peace to know that the child she cared about would end the world she hated. Proud, that was the closest emotion she felt when thinking about it. She knew that Lucifer would be less than happy about not being able to raise his one and only child, but she also knew he'd mope about it for a while then eventually get over it and continue with his life. They both had initially thought of pulling a God and implanting the embryo of the Antichrist in a mortal and letting them go through the pregnancy and birth, but by the time they were aware that Jezebel had conceived it was too late for that, and she wasn't imposed to the idea of carrying him herself.  
She pushed aside the thoughts of keeping her baby and raising him herself and placed him in the basket, not before giving him a final kiss on the forehead. She almost laughed at the parallels between her child and Moses; a newborn baby, sent away by his mother to another family who would teach him lessons she could never teach him, part of something far bigger than he knew at this moment.

_'And with that, the Prodigal Son was given to the Duke so he could begin his mortal life, entirely and blissfully unaware of the life he was going to lead and what he was to bring to the people of Earth.'_

Unimpressed was mainly what Crowley felt when he was handed the basket, along with a little fear. The fate of humanity was in his hands for the next hour or so, something a little more than causing a little Hell in the mortal world. He drove along in his beloved Bentley, questioning the entire way to St Beryl's why it was him that had to deliver the Prince of Darkness. It wasn't exactly fair, placing so much in his hands with absolutely no warning and with no idea as to what he actually had to do.  
"I trust you, Crowley," Jezebel's voice said, floating through his radio and cutting out Queen, much to his dismay, "a certain level of competence is required, something that no one else has."  
"Well, I'm flattered," he replied, still unconvinced as to why literally no other demon in Hell could do this particular job. It was a lot of pressure for him, understandably so; The Apocalypse was currently riding on his shoulders. He had to not cock it up for just long enough to do his job.  
"You earned it, Crowley, didn't you? What you did to the M25 was a stroke of demonic genius, darling." Now, Crowley wasn't exactly a massive fan of when Satan talked to him so directly. He much preferred Jezy, as he called her, talking to her carried far less weight and never had such grand consequences. He could ignore her if he wanted, not that he ever would. There was only one being in all of existence that he enjoyed the company of more than her, and he was, well, an angel. And from what he observed from the few times they had met, the angel somehow enjoyed her company too. Maybe he was a little wayward, that angel, and maybe that was Crowley's fault. Not that he cared. If anything, he liked it, having an angel of God enjoying the company of demons more than his fellow angels. It was rather devious, he thought, wasn't it? And devious was what he did best.  
"The M25? Yeah, well, I'm glad it went down so well," he said, not sure of what to make of being complemented by the Devil Himself. Peculiar wasn't a word he used often, only in situations that were peculiar in definition, such as being complemented by Satan. In truth, the whole night was to be peculiar in ways he couldn't imagine.  
"Here are your instructions," the overly camp voice came through his speakers once again, followed by a cloud of smoke that shouldn't have been coming through his speakers containing the instructions that so easily could've just been given to him verbally and he wouldn't have minded. It was probably easier just to say them, rather than convey the All Important Message in this way, and if it weren't for His endless need for dramatics, Jezy would have just spoken them to him, possibly even in person as she handed him her child. "This is the big one Crowley!"

Great. No pressure, then. Did Crowley mention the part where he had to deliver the Antichrist?


	2. Where’s This Blasted Hell Hound, Then?

_'If Deirdre Young had decided to go into labour on any other day, an angel and a demon wouldn't waste the next eleven years on the wrong child.'_

 

By all that was Heavenly, Aziraphale knew that Crowley had cocked up, majorly. He was stood in the car park of an annoyingly incorrect American diplomat's (and Professional Idiot's) country home, with no Hell Hound in sight nor one approaching. This, naturally, meant one thing; Warlock Dowling wasn't the Antichrist. He had been endeavouring for the past six years to help raise him so that he wouldn't bring about the end of the world as we know it, with only one flaw. It was the wrong child. Oh, if he wasn't an angel and therefore incapable of causing harm he would strangle Crowley. Though, judging by the look currently on Crowley's face, he would do it himself.

"Are you absolutely certain the Hound is on its' way?" He asked his demonic friend, whose eyes were glued to his oversized watch.

"Absolutely. Satan, and she trusted me to be competent!" In that moment, he could've cried. He'd wasted so much time for absolutely nothing. And it wasn't like he could reverse the clock and go back to the beginning and try it all again. Only She had the power to alter time, and Crowley was sceptical to say the least about her willingness to right a demon's wrong.

"I rather think we're, well, screwed, for want of a better word." Aziraphale was shaking, near vibrating with fear about the prospect of him being found to have done The Wrong Thing. Most likely he would be discorporated, and then he wouldn't be able to live on Earth, and then there would be no one to care for his shop and his books, because he doubted that Crowley would care enough to do so if he didn't receive the same punishment as Aziraphale was expecting, so there would be no one that he truly trusted would take care of the amount of himself that he poured into that silly little place in Soho-

"Unless," began Crowley, a lightbulb painfully slowly illuminating above his head (figuratively, of course, there were humans around and he didn't entirely like the idea of being mauled by said humans. It was a bad enough day already), "unless we don't say that this happened. We've got, what, six days until Armageddon, right? That's plenty of time. We can find the actual Antichrist and convince him to not destroy the world!"

"Yes, but I rather think you've missed quite an important factor," the angel said, nerves growing by the second.

"Which is?"

"I'm a terrible liar." It was true, Aziraphale was physically incapable of lying, much less lying to another angel and especially Archangels. Gabriel undoubtedly would question him to see how likely young Warlock was to destroy everything, he was worryingly fixated on making sure the Great Plan stayed on course, and Crowley was expecting Aziraphale to say that everything was perfect and fine when it was so far from it that it might as well have been in another solar system. Crowley, on the other hand, wasn't concerned about this at all. He was worried what Jezebel would say when she learned that he'd lost her child. She was sure to be furious, and maybe then she would bring on the Apocalypse herself and save her son all the trouble. But then he glanced at the angel, his angel who didn't even know he was his, and saw how terrified and upset he was, and suddenly all he cared about was what was going to happen to him.

 

Satan, curse six thousand years of pining.

 

_'It just so happened that at that moment exactly, in a little village called Tadfield not too far away, that a little boy was about to receive the birthday present of his dreams; a Hell Hound.'_

 

"And I'll call him..." Adam paused for a moment to think, stabbing his stick into the ground between his Wellington boots, "Dog."

This particular Hell Hound thought, if indeed Hell Hounds had thoughts, that when his Master the Lord of Darkness names him, it would be something terrifying. Something that would strike fear into the hearts of whoever heard it, and would, in turn, transform said Hell Hound into something equally as terrifying physically. He thought maybe Fenrir, like the old Norse tales of the wolf that stood taller than any man and with jaws to topple a castle, or Cerberus, after the Ancient Greek myth with three heads and who guarded the gates of Hell (which would have been particularly fitting in this case). What he had most definitely not expected was something as plain and good-natured as Dog. And as a result, he was now a mere pest who stood at a quarter of the size of his previous self, and who wasn't going to strike fear into the hearts of anyone, let alone help lead the Forces of Darkness into a battle great enough to destroy the Earth. But Dog retained what little Hell was left in him and leapt forward, determined to at least try and do his duty.

 

_'The Them continued on with their day, thinking only of Dog's sudden appearance as only a coincidence and nothing more. Our angel and our demon, however, fell even deeper into despair as the Sun disappeared below the horizon.'_

 

Crowley had situated himself on the floor of Aziraphale's bookshop, his back resting against the chair he had just slid off, and an empty bottle of a nice vintage in his hand. He knew how much of an outright sin it was to drink a bottle that nice in such a short period of time without appreciation, but the end of the world was soon and he supposed it didn't much matter. Aziraphale was next to him in an identical state, despite only having had half of what Crowley had (angels didn't exactly have the tolerance that demons had, which he had considered an advantage). But as the demon contemplated the days to come, admittedly hideously drunk, he thought that should the world end in that very instance of time, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. It might even be... nice. At least he would be happy. And not the sort of happy doing evil caused him, it wasn't that sort of proud-happy where he could glance around smugly then slink off, completely pleased with himself. No, it was much more of a content sort of happy, the type one feels when they know they have everything they will ever need, when they know everything is absolutely perfect. It seemed to Crowley, that although the world was due to end, he didn't actually care beyond the lack of this little bookshop and the angel that owned it.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was terrified. He was terrified and oh so devastated at the thought of losing the world he loved so much. To him, it was near perfect, full of just enough quirks to keep it truly interesting, but not so many as to ruin it. The human imagination, for example, was one of these little quirks he found most extraordinary. It was exceptionally diverse, ranging from dragons to sea monsters to epic battles, elves and aliens and everything in between. There was hardly anything that Aziraphale knew to be true that humans hadn't imagined. And then those clever little humans had the idea of writing down what they had imagined, forming senseless thoughts into coherent and powerful stories that carried you through surreal places and introduced you to things that would have never been possible. He considered Tolkien to be one of the best imagineers the world had seen (the detail he went into completely astounded the angel. He found the depth and thought put into every aspect of the lore was phenomenal). And Crowley wondered why he liked books so much. Crowley. When had a demon become his best friend? They were supposed to be enemies, archenemies at that, and yet they had spent the better part of six thousand years together, never once actually trying to thwart the other, which was their job. They even helped each other! They had that blasted Arrangement for all those years, and not once did he even think to break it! Why, why did he let Crowley tempt him into it in the first place?

 

Aziraphale thought a little longer, and came to this conclusion: if, and when, the world ended in no more than six days (he was nearly counting seconds at this point), it wasn't the books he'd miss, not the humans. It wasn't the little cafes or the crepes or the dolphins. It would be the ground beneath his feet, truly neutral, and the only place he could see Crowley. That was what he would miss.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is proof that I’m just a little obsessed with this series, but oh well! 
> 
> I wanted Adam to have a demonic mum as well as his dad good ol’ Lucifer, and Jezebel came to mind! 
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments!


End file.
